FLIGHT International, I March 1973
Libyan airliner shot down over Sinai
On February 21 a Boeing 727,
5A-DAH, of Libyan Arab Airlines was
shot down by two Israeli Phantoms
after it had strayed east of the Suez
Canal into airspace dominated by
Israel. The Boeing was under com
mand of a French captain, on loan
from Air France which provides tech
nical assistance to the Libyan airline.
It was operating a scheduled service
from Tripoli to Cairo with an inter
mediate stop at Benghazi and would
normally have followed the airway sys
tem which runs eastward along the
Libyan coast as far as Sidi Barrani.
The route then turns inland to the
VOR and NDB at the western end of
Lake Qarun. Entry to the Cairo ter
minal area is made on a north-easterly
heading over the 71 n.m., 132km leg
from Qarun to the Cairo VOR.
Evidence from the tapes recovered
from the voice recorder and the flight-
data recorder by the Israeli authori
ties indicates that the aircraft is likely
to have been already off course at the
time that it reported over Qarun.
Strong westerly upper winds were re
ported in the area, associated with
sandstorms at low level. The Qarun
VOR has a poor serviceability record,
which makes it probable that the
standby NDB was being used for navi
gation. In the weather conditions at
the time it is likely that the bearing
received in the aircraft would be un
reliable, and it has been suggested by
the Israelis that the aircraft overflew
the reporting point by a significant
margin.
The Qarun position report was ack-
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nowledged by Cairo air traffic control
and the aircraft was cleared to con
tinue for an ILS approach to runway
23. Voice tapes indicate that it is likely
that at this time the Cairo VOR was off
the air, since some lOmin later the
Cairo controller confirmed that the
VOR was "now serviceable." Of the
four other VORs in the Cairo flight
information region which might have
provided the Boeing captain with navi
gational assistance, Port Said, Baltim
and Ras Sudr had all been promul
gated as unserviceable. The approach
surveillance ASR4 radar at Cairo has
been unserviceable since 1971.
The aircraft was cleared to descend,
initially to flight level 140, from its
cruising level of 290 and it is apparent
that as the descent was established
the aircraft was substantially to the
east of track. It was first picked up by
Israel's defence radar at a height of
approximately 20,000ft as it crossed
the southern end of the Suez Canal,
approximately on course for the Israeli
military airfield at Bir Gafgafa. Two
Phantoms were scrambled to intercept
it.
As the Cairo controller advised the
Boeing captain that he was "deserting
airways" the voice recorder shows that
the crew saw a coastline; they did not
identify it and it is noticeable from
the tape transcript that from this point
onwards the captain and Libyan co
pilot had difficulty in communicating
because of their separate languages.
The two Israeli Phantoms made
visual contact with the Boe;ng while
it was still heading north-east. The
If: i
pilot of one aircraft attempted to
make radio contact. He was unsuccess
ful and resorted to the use of the
visual signal code which, though not
promulgated by Icao, is generally
accepted internationally. A series of
wing-rocking moves while the inter-
cepter is ahead of the target is in
tended to indicate that the target air
craft should land. When the Phantoms
made the appropriate signal the Boe
ing captain responded by lowering the
undercarriage and the aircraft turned
and descended as if to land at Bir
Gafgafa. At this time the captain was
still in contact with Cairo and reported
that he was being followed by four
MiGs.
It appears that while the aircraft
was on a westerly heading at about
6,000ft the undercarriage was raised
and the Boeing accelerated towards
the Suez Canal to the west. Warning
tracer shots from the Phantoms were
ignored and, in an attempt to force
the aircraft to land by damaging one
wingtip, shots were fired which re
sulted in the Boeing crashing in the
desert with the loss of 106 lives.
Among the survivors as we go to press
is the critically injured co-pilot.
The airspace over the Sinai desert is
still technically in the Cairo flight in
formation region, but it is prohibited
to all civil movements and the effec
tive eastern boundary of the FIR is at
the Suez Canal. Flight-planning charts
indicate clearly that flights in Egyp
tian airspace outside airways are not
allowed and are liable to interception.
Possibly it was for this reason that up
until the last moment the Boeing cap
tain appears to have thought that the
fighter aircraft were Egyptian rather
than Israeli. This tends to be con
firmed by the voice recorder.
On Friday February 23, Mr Knut
Hammarskjbld, the director-general of
lata, called for the establishment of
a "neutral international commission"
to investigate the shooting down of
the airliner. He said that "no rule of
law and not even the most stringent
interpretation of any provision of the
Chicago convention . . . permits such
a degree of violence for whatever
reason, even in a zone of conflict,
against passenger aircraft engaged in
international civil air transport." Re
ferring to prohibited areas, Article 9
Bir Gafgafa, the Israeli air base where the
two Phantoms were trying to force the Boeing
to land, is about 50 miles to the east of the
southern end of the Great Bitter Lake,
through which the Suez Canal passes. It
should be noted that the Cairo FIR is still
shown as extending to the pre-1967 war
borders. (Map by courtesy of International
Aeradio)